You are incredibly lame. It’s a fact of this modern existence; life within the confines of society - nay, liberal arts college - has reduced the criteria for greatness to not showering and being able to murder an amp in front of approximately 35 apathetic teens. Modern man, sadly, does not need to ever submit his soul to the forging fires of Viking raids, hand to hand combat, or, say, the dogged and single-minded pursuit across the entire globe of that greatest and most terrible of creatures, the white whale. This, I think, is the message of Mastodon’s newest, Leviathan: you are incredibly lame. It’s possible, I suppose (they suppose), that you are some six-foot leather-clad Viking warrior reincarnated into a modern metalhead, but chances are, 5 minutes in the ring with Moby’d flatten you to the mizzenmast. (Note: any nautical references henceforth are bound to be incredibly inaccurate.) Leviathan is - I’m not ashamed to say - a concept album, and it’s a concept album about Moby Dick. Regardless of feelings about the book as a whole, the reader must at this point concede that this is totally fucking cool. It is this author’s humble opinion that the music world in general desperately needs more concept albums. That said, and in light of our pathetic modern condition, Mastodon presents their second LP, which will quite possibly be the closest brush any of you ever actually have with true greatness.
Mastodon have of late become darlings of the fringes of the metal scene with their bizarre southern-fried grind; their first LP, Remission, was chaotic, brutal, catchy, distinctly American, and also distinctly outside of anything that could be traditionally called metal - all a recipe for (well-deserved) appeal to folks who don’t know or care anything about Morbid Angel or Strapping Young Lad.
That said, they’ve changed. It’s true: this is not the same album that they made 2 years ago. The production has changed; it’s cleaner, and the vocals can get cleaner too. However, no one can argue that this is for the worse. Remission was crushing because it was chaotic and cramped; the production and the density and complexity of the playing (best. drummer. ever.) suffocated the listener with this unholy, uncompromising heaviness. Leviathan is, one the other hand, more like its namesake: fucking huge.
This is an entire album about a fucking whale, and it shows in more than song titles like ‘Seabeast’ and ‘Iron Tusk’. Every song is an epic. The melodies are all as huge and thunderous as they’d have to be in order to do the band’s newfound ambition justice, but they all retain the bizarre invention that made Mastodon worth listening to in the first place. When I say huge, don’t think of the overblown pretention of your favorite prog rock dinosaur; think Carcharocles Megalodon, the 52.5 ton ancient shark and namesake of track six.
Those scared off or made skittish by the great, the epic, and the ambitious in rock music would do well to avoid this record. Those who prefer their music loaded down with irony and smirking reference - or at least with a hip fashion sense - will find it as best an object for derision (or ironic enthusiasm - who can tell with these kids?), at worst absolutely cringe-worthy. This is, after all, a band which is not afraid to scream ‘WHITE WHALE / HOLY GRAIL’ over thundering power chords. But cheesy this ain’t. Take it from me; I hate cheese. There’s not a second on this album which will cause you to look at your feet and say, ‘Yeah… I don’t really know why they decided to do that.’ It’s 46:43 of crushing, technical, and at times brilliant music. If you love metal, get it, and don’t be scared off by weirdness and outside influences. If metal scares you, pick it up - there’s not a single dab of corpsepaint or a single invocation of the Dark Goatlord on the album. If fashion and irony are more important to you than rock, get bent.
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